Hi All, Sorry to all and sundry if this has nothing at all to do with the remit of ALUG. Please however spare me the flames. This is the sort of thing that really pisses me off. The reason I switched to Linux in the first place was one thing ... freedom. I'm sick of being held to ransom by the big corporates. But its no suprise. Democracy is a misnomer. Little people don't get heard while the big corporates have more lobbyists than there are MPs MEPs etc to lobby. Since when did a company vote? When did a company campaign for human rights? When did a company die on a battlefield protecting those rights? David you ask what we can do. The only thing one can do is to stick to open, non-copyrighted stuff as far as practical. Boycott those which seek to restrict your choices as both a citizen and a consumer. These things are snuck in very quietly, with cleverly orchestrated lead ups to convince people that these are good things. Thereby "protecting people's intellectual property" (a noble good thing to do) becomes necessary due to the 'high speed, rapidly changing knowledge economy" (something we all are a part of like it or not) but results in restrictions on choice and liberty being introduced by stealth - and nobody notices. For me, I will continue to exercise what I consider to be essential human freedoms - if that puts me in a position 'outside of the law' then so be it. Everyone must be their own master in this. I will support organisations such as Free Software Foundation which is involved in trying to prevent Software and Business Process patents from being enacted creating a complete minefield for anyone considering a software solution. Mostly however I will attempt to stay within the land of the 'free', a growing world. So when someone comes along with a proprietary restricive DVD software for Linux I'll say "No Thanks". If enough people say no thanks then the market (the only thing the Coporates Understand) will become the advocate of the free, supplying a voice to the dissenters. This is why things like National Linux Day are good. Getting people to begin thinking in 'free, open' terms can be like rescuing them from a cult. For me the past few years with GNU/Linux has opened up a whole world that I never realised existed. A rich environment that reciprocates in an almost altruistic manner. For me this is priceless, and the more people that realise this, get involved and make it work the better. When people aren't buying and aren't caring you can bet that the big guys will take note. Eg. Napster.....Sod off Bertelsmann or whatever your name is, You can spend as many millions as you like trying to shut them down, but its already too late... enough have tasted that even if Napster disappears, thousands more are waiting in the wings to step in to the breach. The Snowball to Snowman analogy is true. It takes loads of effort to make a snowman, but you expend 80% in the first few rolls trying to get the snow to gather, but once the ball has enough weight you just have to keep it moving forward, growth will take care of itself. So that's all we need to do, keep this thing moving, keep the debates open, keep raising the issues, keep convincing people that free is good, it's here. Final word has to go to Soren Aabye Kierkegaard "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."
I'm climbing off my soapbox now. Sorry again if this is waffle to you all. Best Regards Earl
Message: 14
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 14:34:50 -0700 (PDT) From: David Freeman david_freeman@rocketmail.com Reply-To: David_freeman@rocketmail.com To: alug@stu.uea.ac.uk Subject: [Alug] A dark day for freedom
All,
For those of you who read slashdot will have seen the reference to the following article.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/intprop/news/copyri ght.htm#4
the way I understand this is that it is now illegal to circumvent copy protection on media, such as the norwegain student(jon johassan I think) did last year to the DVD spec. This is a very dark day if I have understood this right. The big companies are the winners in this case and it posses a massive threat to linux, under this act, it could be illegal for us to use DeCSS, and it certainly will be when the DVD replacement arives. This leaves me with a question, what can we do about it? our rights are steadily being eroded, the RIP bill etc... yet these bills are being snuck in very quietly. Can anyone suggest a course of action to prevent this from continueing?
Thanks
D
Earl Brannigan wrote: (a lot of good stuff about free speech and big nasty corporations)
This was on slashdot yesterday and is kind of related. If you liked the previous, you may well find this interesting- I know I did.
http://www.kuro5hin.org/?op=displaystory;sid=2001/4/8/214245/6519
Jo
On Thu, Apr 12, 2001 at 03:06:04PM +0100, Earl Brannigan wrote:
I'm sick of being held to ransom by the big corporates. But its no suprise. Democracy is a misnomer. Little people don't get heard while the big corporates have more lobbyists than there are MPs MEPs etc to lobby.
What would you suggest instead? Vote anarchy? Rule by benevolent dictator?
Mostly however I will attempt to stay within the land of the 'free', a growing world. So when someone comes along with a proprietary restricive DVD software for Linux I'll say "No Thanks".
Ok, but most people will gladly accept it. I've done a lot of support and bits of random code for the Xine project (a GPL'd mpeg2/dvd player for linux). People just want something that works, lots of people have said that they'd willingly buy LinDVD if/when it ever happens, just to have something that works properly.
In my experience "the masses" want things that work and are willing to pay for them and are more than willing to give up freedoms to get them.
--- Earl Brannigan earl.brannigan@lindenhouse.co.uk wrote:
Hi All, Sorry to all and sundry if this has nothing at all to do with the remit of ALUG. Please however spare me the flames.
The flames are character building :o)
This is the sort of thing that really pisses me off.
Me two.
The reason I switched to Linux in the first place was one thing ... freedom. I'm sick of being held to ransom by the big corporates. But its no suprise. Democracy is a misnomer. Little people don't get heard while the big corporates have more lobbyists than there are MPs MEPs etc to lobby. Since when did a company vote? When did a company campaign for human rights? When did a company die on a battlefield protecting those rights?
So niave, you mean to say you thought we actually got a say in hwat happens. The only way that happens is by donating lots of money to th goverment, witness Burny Ecelstone(sp?)
David you ask what we can do. The only thing one can do is to stick to open, non-copyrighted stuff as far as practical.
Yes I agree, But I am but a drop in th ocean. No one will listen to me. My blank refusal to by a DVD player until region encoding is removed has lost the DVD companies practically nothing.
Boycott those which seek to restrict your choices as both a citizen and a consumer.
Thats fine in theory, but I am only one, and with those on the list, we make up less than one percent of 1 percent of the voting population.
These things are snuck in very quietly, with cleverly orchestrated lead ups to convince people that these are good things. Thereby "protecting people's intellectual property" (a noble good thing to do) becomes necessary due to the 'high speed, rapidly changing knowledge economy" (something we all are a part of like it or not) but results in restrictions on choice and liberty being introduced by stealth - and nobody notices.
RIP bill is a classic example of this.
For me, I will continue to exercise what I consider to be essential human freedoms - if that puts me in a position 'outside of the law' then so be it. Everyone must be their own master in this.
I agree with this as well.
I will support organisations such as Free Software Foundation which is involved in trying to prevent Software and Business Process patents from being enacted creating a complete minefield for anyone considering a software solution. Mostly however I will attempt to stay within the land of the 'free', a growing world. So when someone comes along with a proprietary restricive DVD software for Linux I'll say "No Thanks". If enough people say no thanks then the market (the only thing the Coporates Understand) will become the advocate of the free, supplying a voice to the dissenters.
This is great in theory, but for most things the market is several millions of people and we are just a handful.
This is why things like National Linux Day are good. Getting people to begin thinking in 'free, open' terms can be like rescuing them from a cult. For me the past few years with GNU/Linux has opened up a whole world that I never realised existed. A rich environment that reciprocates in an almost altruistic manner. For me this is priceless, and the more people that realise this, get involved and make it work the better. When people aren't buying and aren't caring you can bet that the big guys will take note. Eg. Napster.....Sod off Bertelsmann or whatever your name is, You can spend as many millions as you like trying to shut them down, but its already too late... enough have tasted that even if Napster disappears, thousands more are waiting in the wings to step in to the breach. The Snowball to Snowman analogy is true. It takes loads of effort to make a snowman, but you expend 80% in the first few rolls trying to get the snow to gather, but once the ball has enough weight you just have to keep it moving forward, growth will take care of itself.
Quite true, we need to get the ball to start rolling, this is one of the reason I have been pushing NLD.
So that's all we need to do, keep this thing moving, keep the debates open, keep raising the issues, keep convincing people that free is good, it's here. Final word has to go to Soren Aabye Kierkegaard "People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid."
Quite true.
I too am climing off my soapbox.
Thanks
D
I'm climbing off my soapbox now. Sorry again if this is waffle to you all. Best Regards Earl
Message: 14
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 14:34:50 -0700 (PDT) From: David Freeman david_freeman@rocketmail.com Reply-To: David_freeman@rocketmail.com To: alug@stu.uea.ac.uk Subject: [Alug] A dark day for freedom
All,
For those of you who read slashdot will have seen the reference to
the
following article.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/intprop/intprop/news/copyri
ght.htm#4
the way I understand this is that it is now illegal to circumvent
copy
protection on media, such as the norwegain student(jon johassan I think) did last year to the DVD spec. This is a very dark day if I
have
understood this right. The big companies are the winners in this
case
and it posses a massive threat to linux, under this act, it could
be
illegal for us to use DeCSS, and it certainly will be when the DVD replacement arives. This leaves me with a question, what can we do about it? our rights are steadily being eroded, the RIP bill etc...
yet
these bills are being snuck in very quietly. Can anyone suggest a course of action to prevent this from continueing?
Thanks
D
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